Fox News Mocks Facebook's Expanded Gender Options: VIDEO

Yesterday Facebook massively expanded their gender identification options for users from two to over fifty, and right on cue the conservative talking airheads over at Fox News have responded with bizarre false equivalencies, melodramatic confusion, and outright mockery.

One reporter commented "[I]ntersex, whatever that is..." apparently forgetting that his job as a reporter is to know what he's talking about. Another pair snarked, "Heading over to the male, Clayton." "No, I changed mine to 'Intersex.'"

And then great thinker Todd Starnes posted a shabby straw man on his own Facebook wall, writing, "What if you identify as a pine cone or a chicken or a weed whacker?" Identifying as a chicken or pine cone means one is suffering from species dysphoria, which is utterly unrleated to gender or sexuality, and identifying as an inanimate object was not a mental condition I was able to find with a cursory Google, Wikipedia, and DSM-IV/5 search.

A video of clips of various Fox News reports, if you can stomach it, is AFTER THE JUMP...

Mikey, I'm 23. Speak for yourself. It is one thing to be open minded. It is another thing to accept every fad and every crazy idea that some transgender person dreams up. I don't like Fox but they are absolutely right to mock this. Hopefully, Stewart and Colbert will do something on it.

Posted by: Paul | Feb 14, 2014 6:55:53 PM

I actually agree with Fox. Liberal/Feminist mainstream media continue with the pussication if men. Not the best words to use but that's exactly what it is. Either you are a man, woman or trans although some believe that being trans is unnatural.

Posted by: Gonzo | Feb 14, 2014 7:00:13 PM

Funny how many towleroad commenters sound like those imbecilic bigots at fox. I wonder if there's an overlap?

Posted by: Thedrdonna | Feb 14, 2014 7:04:00 PM

I was a little puzzled about there being FIFTY options, which seems overkill to me. But it seems as if they are mostly variants of transgender. If that makes any trans or androgynous or questioning person feel good, then YAY Facebook.

Posted by: Zlick | Feb 14, 2014 7:28:43 PM

Well if trams gets over fifty flavors, why not gay? I mean there's otters, thinks, queens, power bottoms, anonymous tops, etc etc. I personally feel that the transgender community is discriminatory by forcing us to put "gay" and "male" and not specify the terms we use to describe someone who prefers frosted flakes before 10am while wearing a robe and happens to think Heidi Klum is hot but would never do her, I'm sure something I that "pangendered" listing would account for that.

Posted by: Oh vey | Feb 14, 2014 7:57:03 PM

Please. 50 LOLZ?! That's begging to be mocked.

*ratbastard is dead. long live clutchthepearlz

Posted by: *clutchthepearlz | Feb 14, 2014 7:59:21 PM

@SAID... How could they possibly be equating anything with homosexuality when they are talking about gender identity? Sexual orientation and gender identity are not the same thing. That list of options for gender identity does not contain gay, lesbian or bisexual anywhere in it and it shouldn't.

Posted by: anon | Feb 14, 2014 8:02:30 PM

I see Rick is posting under some new names. Must be his only way to escape the crushing loneliness that comes to him on valentine's day.

Posted by: Tyler | Feb 14, 2014 8:40:20 PM

again people go on that Rick is sock puppeting when the truth there is a large portion of gays who are not down with the whole LGBT thing.

Posted by: Homo Genius | Feb 14, 2014 8:47:40 PM

Really, Todd Starnes calls his cock a weed & he wants it whacked? By whom, I wonder...Bryan Fischer, Tony Perkins...? Oh, the waste of energy by these people. Their brains are surely mush by this point in their lives!

Posted by: DamFine10 | Feb 14, 2014 9:24:42 PM

Good on Facebook's new gender options. Gender is complex and non binary. If you have trouble comprehending how this might be so, I encourage you to make an honest attempt at a basic Google search. I confess I personally have trouble truly understanding what it means/feels to be trans (for example), but that doesn't make it not "real." Also, regarding the quantity of terms, this relatively new (well, in Western culture, sort of) open exploration of gender is going to take a while. When modern science shows us countless examples of gender as a spectrum, it's tough to point at one sliver and accurately label it. Take the socially complicated racial identity labeling: black/AfricanAmerican/negro/colored/etc. Even when pointing to basically the same idea, each term has been and is being negotiated constantly. And if you're not part of that community, why not withhold judgement and let those actual communities determine how to describe themselves?

Posted by: Mike in SF | Feb 14, 2014 9:28:22 PM

Zlick said:

"If that makes any trans or androgynous or questioning person feel good, then YAY Facebook."

Unfortunately, Zlick, this won't make them feel good. Nothing makes them feel good. Their condition is what fills them with rage and self-pity. Studies show that even full, successful surgical transition does not lower the incredibly high transsexual suicide rate.

What these folks need is long-term psychiatric help, not corporate pandering to their illness.

Posted by: Matthew | Feb 14, 2014 9:47:10 PM

I applaud Facebook for simply acknowledging reality. People come in many variations and expressions. We all like to feel accepted, and one way we feel accepted is to have someone acknowledge who we are. That's what FB is doing. Allowing us to express ourselves as we are.

Good for them. Hopefully others will follow their lead.

Posted by: Marc | Feb 14, 2014 10:23:54 PM

These are the people Putin uses to condone his own vicious actions when he belittles our attempt to express condemnation over Russian mistreatment of LBGT people. Since we have these Fuks News homophobes spewing their demagogic crap over our own public airways here at home, we have no right to protest his words and deeds in his country. Fuks News would just love to add him on as one of their respected (?) pundits since his views are the same as theirs. Two big piles of дерьмо (Google Translate this Russian word.)

Posted by: StevyD | Feb 14, 2014 10:31:08 PM

If these are actually "gay" people posting on this thread, then I think they are as uninformed and judgmental as Brian Brown.